The authorities this time quickly got the upper hand. During this affair, a young boy was killed, and an angry crowd headed up Broadway toward Astor Place and fought running battles with mounted troops from behind improvised barricades. Speakers shouted out for revenge against the authorities whose actions they held responsible for the fatalities. The next day a meeting was called in City Hall Park. Dozens of the injured and dead were laid out in nearby saloons and shops, and the next morning mothers and wives combed the streets and morgues to locate their kin. Many of those killed were innocent bystanders, and almost all of the casualties were from the working class. First into the air and then several times at close range into the crowd. ![]() Finally, the soldiers lined up and, after warnings - which were unheard over the screaming crowd - opened fire. While the riot raged on, Macready managed to finish the play before slipping out of the theater in a disguise.įearing they had lost control of the city, the authorities called in the troops, who arrived at 9:15, only to be jostled, attacked, and en-masse injured. Additional policemen were assigned to protect the homes in this area of the city’s wealthy elite who were called “uppertens”. A total of 350 men would be added to the 100 policemen outside the theater in support of the 150 inside. General Charles Sandford assembled the state’s Seventh Regiment in Washington Square Park, along with mounted troops and light artillery. Desperate to quell the riot, the police chief, George Washington Matsell, had previously informed the mayor that there was not sufficient manpower to quell a serious melee. The police were called to quell the ensuing madness, to absolutely no avail. There were also many women and young children in their amongst.Įgged-on by some of the gang leaders, a number of the more boisterous citizens began to dig out stones from the newly paved streets and began to heave them at the Opera House windows. These masses contained various street toughs and other riff-raff who loved nothing more than to create wide-ranging mayhem over anything that contributed to anti-British sentiments. On May 10, 1849, an unruly crowd of over 10,000 gathered outside the Astor Place Opera House. He produced a widely distributed handbill designed to inflame the unwashed hordes, and he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The performers were forced to pantomime as the “great unwashed” shouted, “down with the codfish aristocracy.” Meanwhile, at Forrest’s May 7 performance, the audience rose and cheered when he spoke Macbeth’s line, “What rhubarb, senna or what purgative drug will scour these English hence?”Įnter the notorious rabble-rouser Ned Buntline, a well-known figure within New York City police circles, inventor of the “dime novel” and a power within the American Committee (also known as the Order Of United Americans). They used the vantage point to throw rotten eggs, potatoes, apples, lemons, shoes, bottles of stinking liquid, and ripped-up seats to the stage. On May 7, 1849, many Forrest supporters had seats in the top tiers of the Astor Place Opera House, where Macready performing Macbeth. Supposedly, Forrest had actually gone to a London performance of Macready doing Hamlet and hissed him in a resounding voice. They often simultaneously performed the same play at different theaters. The actors connected to the fatal Opera House event were Edwin Forrest, the first genuine American star, and the Brit, William Charles Macready. There was a raging anti-British sentiment by lower class native Americans and the growing members of Manhattan’s Irish immigrants. In 1765, an entire stage was destroyed during The Stamp Act unrest as British thespians performed. Bad blood had been festering in this arena for over 80 years. The early years of the American theatrical stage was dominated by British actors. ![]() The fuss was over who was the superior in expressing the great Bard’s lines. ![]() That evening, the mayhem had its roots in a professional feud between two Shakespearean actors from opposite sides of the Atlantic. The riot took place on May 10, 1849, and is now the location of Cooper Union College. My virgin column for Riot Material covers an actual historical tragedy connected to a deadly riot at the Astor Place Opera House on the island of Manhattan. Jason Robards (left) and Donald Moffat in The Iceman Cometh
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